"We were not ready to pay the price for that to happen."
"This is NATO's biggest defeat. But I still believe that leaving Afghanistan was the right decision, although a painful one, as many people suffered," he said. "We wanted to see a free, democratic Afghanistan, but the reality is that we as NATO allies were not ready to pay the price for that to happen. Over these 20 years, we have realized that building a democratic society through the use of military force, as we tried to do, is too heavy and ambitious a project."
On April 14, 2021, the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden, announced the end of operations in Afghanistan, which became the longest foreign military campaign in American history. The U.S. began this war in October 2001. At its peak in 2010-2013, the number of Western allied troops in Afghanistan exceeded 150,000. The withdrawal of U.S. troops began in May 2021, with the main combat units of the U.S. and NATO leaving Afghanistan in 2014.
The Taliban launched a large-scale operation to establish control over Afghanistan following the announcement by the United States of its intention to withdraw its forces. On August 15, 2021, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled abroad, and the Taliban entered Kabul without a fight. The last American soldiers left Afghanistan by the beginning of September 2021.
